Don't Say Goodbye
by SabreDae
Summary: Since his return to District 12, Peeta has hardly seen Katniss. Neither of them are speaking. Barely friends, can Peeta put the past behind him and get Katniss back in his life? Oneshot set during Catching Fire.


**A/N: One of my friends – she's not on FF unfortunately – suggested this fic as we returned from the cinema after seeing the Hunger Games movie and were listening to Olly Murs on her iPod in her car. When Don't Say Goodbye came on and we were, of course, still talking about the film/the book when she said she thought the song fitted Katniss and Peeta well and that I should write it, so I have. I hope you'll enjoy it. Let me know what you think! **

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**Don't Say Goodbye**

Ever since we'd returned from the Games, I could feel her slipping away. We never spoke anymore, Katniss and I. Literally; I'd barely seen her since that day on the train when we returned to District 12. She was off hunting all the time, or so it seemed to me. I was stuck back in my parents' bakery or taking care of Haymitch whilst she sneaked into the woods and illegally hunted game, just as she had before the Games. The only consolation was that I knew she wasn't with Gale because he was working in the mines now. Regardless of the little time she spent with her "best friend" it was clear that she liked him more than me.

We weren't friends anymore. I guess it was as simple as that. I felt guilty for staying away from her but I was hurt. I couldn't believe she'd just been pretending to love me. And how had I not noticed? Was I so in love with her that I was willing to ignore the signs that showed she didn't love me back? After all, she was always the one who broke off the kisses – except of course for that one when she had the head injury. I'd had to be the one to pull away, as hard as it was. I'd been aching to talk to her though.

When we met at Haymitch's that day, I couldn't supress the deep-seated feeling of longing that rushed through me and left me breathless. All I wanted was another kiss even if it was engineered simply for the cameras.

"_Look, if you want to be babied, you should have asked Peeta," she said, her voice brusque and almost harsh._

"_Asked me what?" I asked, shutting Haymitch's front door and crossing the room. Once my loaf of freshly baked bread was out of my hands, I took Haymitch's knife from him and busied myself in slicing the bread._

"_Asked you to wake me without giving me pneumonia," Haymitch answers._

_I passed Haymitch a slice and then braced myself for looking directly at Katniss. I knew what would happen, but I still wasn't prepared for_ _the feeling of my heart bursting out of my chest cavity as it stuttered momentarily before restarting._

"_Would you like a piece?" I asked, even if it was just to be polite._

_Her grey eyes met mine. "No, I ate at the Hob, but thank you." _

_For some reason, her words don't sound like her. It's like we're complete strangers, rather than two people who had gotten to know each other almost intimately during the 74__th__ Hunger Games. _

"_You're welcome," I reply, trying and failing miserably to work some feeling into my voice. It's been this way every time we've seen each other. Neither of us is fully able to broach the topic of what our true relationship is. Are we friends? Are we lovers? Are we in love? Are we just acquaintances?_

_Cutting into the silence, Haymitch jibed, "Brrr. You two have got a lot of warming up to do before showtime," reminded both Katniss and I that we had to resume our roles, well she had to anyway. I could see the unwillingness on Katniss' face, but she was quick to try to mask it._

"_Take a bath, Haymitch," Katniss instructed, choosing to take the window rather than have to walk past me to get to the door._

Once she was gone I realised again just how much I missed her. It was torture not to be able to stare into her eyes. It was still odd to sleep at night without her warm body as a comforting presence beside mine, as it had been during the Games. And it was so hard not to dwell on her beauty. But I still couldn't get over the way she's practically two-timed me and then thrown herself back into Gale's arms.

It was only a day later that she burst out of her house, ran towards me and kissed me. She seemed like a different person, but underneath I saw the real her, the one who only acted that way only because she had to. Despite that, I can't be truthful either. I couldn't show the cameras that it was perhaps the closest we'd been in months. I loved her too much for that. And the instant her lips touched mine it was like setting free a beast. I was insatiable. I couldn't have given her a half-hearted kiss if I'd tried.

And then it reverted back to the odd word here and there as we passed by each other on the train. At dinner, she would barely look at me. She pushed her food around and hardly touched her broth. We attempted to bring her into the conversation but she would only respond with surly monosyllabic replies.

"What colour dress are you wearing in four then?" I asked, knowing that I could have merely turned to Cinna for the information.

She mumbled something without looking up from her bowl of broth.

When the train pulled to a stop and Effie began fretting, she snapped, "Nobody cares, Effie!" We all stared at her in shock, Effie looking hurt. "Well nobody does!" In an instant she was on her feet and leaving the dining car.

Almost feeling numb from her outburst, I got to my feet and followed her.

She heard me and didn't even turn before she said, "I'm not in the mood for another lecture."

"I'll try to keep it brief," I told her.

"I thought you were Haymitch," she replied, looking at me as I sat beside her.

"No, he's still working on that muffin. Bad day, huh?"

"It's nothing," she mumbled.

I knew she was lying.

Deciding that the only way I would ever get her to tell me the truth was if I made something clear to her, I took a deep breath and said, "Look, Katniss, I've been wanting to talk to you about the way I acted on the train. I mean, the last train. The one that brought us home. I knew you had something with Gale. I was jealous of him before I even officially met you. And it wasn't fair to hold you to anything that happened in the Games. I'm sorry."

She seemed taken aback and then quietly responded with, "I'm sorry, too."

But I knew she had nothing to be sorry for and told her that. "There's nothing for you to be sorry about. You were just keeping us alive. But I don't want us to go on like this, ignoring each other in real life and falling into the snow every time there's a camera around. So I thought it I stopped being so, you know, wounded, we could take a shot at just being friends."

I waited for her to reply, fearing that she'd say no. I honestly believed it was a possibility that she would say goodbye. Just hearing that word would be enough to stop my world, to destroy any hopes I had for a future with her.

Don't let it end here, I prayed.

Finally, after what seemed like an age, she told me, "Okay."

I gave her a slight smile and felt a weight lifting off me.

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**A/N: So, what do you think? If you want to check out the song (Don't Say Goodbye by Olly Murs) it will be on youtube. Anyway, review!**


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